News from Seattle's Office of Economic Development

On April 6, 2018, the Trump administration rolled out a new “zero tolerance policy” mandating that all individuals who illegally enter the United States must be prosecuted. Although calling for prosecution of undocumented border crossings is not new, the administration’s inhumane practice of forced family separation represents an extreme shift in this country’s treatment of immigrants, who are often fleeing to the United States to seek refuge. America’s economy has long been built by immigrants, and those coming from the Mexican border have a hand in shaping every industry Washington proudly boasts, from aerospace to tech to entrepreneurship to the state’s multi-billion-dollar agriculture industry, which flows through Seattle’s ports daily.

The United States relies on people immigrating from Mexico in every sector of the economy, particularly in our state’s agricultural sector. 40.4% of all workers in the agricultural, farming, fishing, and forestry industries are immigrants.

For workers, an average day in Washington’s many orchards and farms can start as early as 5 A.M., with the most common minimum yield of three to four bins of apples (four bins for Red Delicious, three bins for every other apple variety), 420 pounds of cherries, 152 pounds of blueberries, or four bins of pears per day, depending on which fruit is in season. Washington’s international agricultural industry is dependent on securing a solid group of workers each agricultural season to pick, process, pack, and manage the produce that reaches global markets.

However, the population of Mexican-born immigrants in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing since the peak population of 12.8 million in 2007. From 2009 to 2014, U.S. citizen labor has failed to maintain the workforce needed to keep farms at their highest profitable margins. Benton City, Wash. grower Shawn Gay lost one third of his Gala apples three years ago when the lack of labor meant his farm just simply ran out of time to complete the harvest. Auburn, Wash. farmer Rosella Mosby saw $100,000 of profit rot away due to a loss of more than 20% of their workforce. Like Gay and Mosby, many farmers are seeing that native U.S. born workers are not able to make up for the labor gap caused by a declining foreign-born workforce. Fruit goes unpicked which means farms are losing out on precious profits and putting their livelihoods, as well as Washington’s export economy at risk.

It is no wonder that fewer Mexican-born immigrants are coming to fill Washington jobs, with agricultural worker conditions becoming harsher. According to The Economist, “while immigration between 1990 and 2006 had little effect on wages of native-born Americans, it lowered the wages of previous immigrants by 6.7%.” Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly raids and audits farms, and the effect is obvious to local farm owners. “There is a lot more concern and worry,” Hedlin Family farm owner Dave Hedlin said in a 2017 interview with Go Skagit. “Even if you have a green card, you worry. Everybody has got to know people who aren’t legal.”

We have too much to lose with a disappearing immigrant population. Washington State is the second largest food distributor in the U.S., which means that the ripple effects of a lesser supply of exports affects the entire world. Our state’s economy is built on the backs, hands, and feet of each migrant worker, who are constantly enduring the fear and worry that the administration has instilled. ICE raids and detention centers are terrorizing and destroying the immigrant communities that have, for years, done the heavy lifting to build this country. We need to be working to protect and build the migrant community, not tearing them down.

Learn more about OED’s work to support Latinx and all small business owners in Seattle here, and understand resources available to immigrants of any background through the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, such as the free Legal Defense Network, free naturalization services and workshops, English as a Second Language job-readiness skills, and more.

The city of Seattle’s new startup liaison is a face you’ll likely recognize. The Office of Economic Development announced Thursday that Rebecca Lovell has taken on the newly created role overseeing the Startup Seattle program. “My big initiative this year will be the talent pipeline,” Lovell said. “When I meet with startups, finding talent seems to be one of the biggest throttles to their own growth.” Another important initiative for Startup Seattle, Lovell said, is to reach out to communities that are underrepresented in the startup sector, such as women, people of color and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

Rebecca Lovell, Startup Liaison,City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development

“I love Seattle and the startup community, and couldn’t be more excited to be an advocate for our city. We have so many key ingredients for success, and I look forward to working with community organizations, schools and universities, and future and current startuppers to ensure Seattle is on the international map of innovation where it belongs,” said Lovell. “I’m excited to carry on the great work began by Red Russak, supported by the community.”

“As one of dozens of community volunteers working alongside the city, I’m incredibly excited we’re launching this initiative to ensure competitiveness, benchmark our progress against that of other leading cities, and expand opportunities in technology entrepreneurship,” said Chris DeVore, Startup Seattle advisory committee member and chair of the city’s Economic Development Commission. “Rebecca brings passion, industry experience, and an incredible network to this position, and I very much look forward to working with her in this new role.”

With all the emphasis on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees, how do we make sense out of a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute?

As covered last week by The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, and others, the report argued that there is no shortage of graduates in STEM fields overall, and that this applies to all of the various subfields of STEM, including computer science.

Ed Lazowska, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, pointed out in his opinion editorial in yesterday’s Seattle Times that the original report, and the subsequent national media coverage, confused the issue when it comes to computer sciences.

While there may be no overall shortage of STEM graduates, Professor Lazowska observed that it is incorrect to assume that all of these graduates are interchangeable. He concludes that the Washington State economy continues to exhibit a large and unfulfilled demand for computer science graduates. In Lazowska’s words: “Computer science: it’s where the jobs are. It’s where the future is.”

In the January, 13 2013 issue of The Seattle Times “NW Jobs” section, the Seattle Office of Economic Development’s (OED) Pathways to Careers program was highlighted for its effectiveness in workforce training. The article discusses the exciting predictions about Washington’s workforce growth in 2013. Many forecasters agree that Washington (especially Puget Sound) is poised for a robust 2013 in terms of job growth.

Pathways to Careers is a program that OED and numerous partners developed with the Seattle Community Colleges system to teach middle skills to workers involved in business IT; health care; manufacturing and industrial work; and international trade, transportation, and logistics. Middle skills are jobs skills that require some education and training beyond high school, but less than a bachelor’s degree.

OED’s Workforce Development Manager Matthew Houghton was a major contributor to the piece, providing comments about the current outlook for local workforce development and the strategies that will help workers obtain jobs in various industries.

See below for the full text from The Seattle Times blog post:

“Gains from Cranes: Modest Job Growth for Seattle Area in 2013”

By Randy Woods / Special to NWjobs

In spite of the lingering concerns over the slow economic recovery and the 286,000 people still out of work statewide, many forecasters agree that Washington, and especially the Puget Sound region, is poised for what could be a robust 2013.

“Our forecast in November showed that from the end of 2011 to the end of 2012, Washington state gained 60,000 jobs,” says Steve Lerch, chief economist and executive director of the state’s Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC). The leisure and recreation category increased by 9,400 new jobs in 2012. “This is a good sign that people are feeling more comfortable spending their discretionary income.”

The ERFC’s latest forecast is for employment to grow modestly, by an average of 1.9 percent each year between 2013 and 2017, “as improving construction employment growth more than offsets declining manufacturing growth and the reductions in government employment subside.”

“However the country recovers from the recession, we’re going to be in much better shape than anywhere else,” says Matt Houghton, workforce development manager for the Seattle Office of Economic Development (OED).

Construction resurfaces
Another way to predict job growth is to look out your window and count the active construction cranes.

While the Puget Sound area is not approaching the levels of its pre-recession building boom, the region is beginning to see a return of activity in the construction sector, which seemed all but dead just two years ago.

At a press event last month, Butch Brooks, president of the Associated General Contractors of Washington (AGCWA) and owner of Brooks Construction Management, stood in his hard hat before the partially demolished Alaskan Way Viaduct to announce some rare good news for his industry. After losing nearly 30,000 jobs during the recession, the construction sector in the Puget Sound region had rebounded in 2012, growing by 10 percent and adding 6,500 new jobs.

“There are more people working in construction in this area today than at any given time since the summer of 2009,” Brooks says. “Indeed, only Houston, Texas, added more construction jobs than Seattle did during the past year.”

Much of this work, he adds, is coming not only from major infrastructure projects such as the viaduct replacement tunnel and the new state Route 520 bridge, but also from private-sector expansion from companies such as Amazon.com in South Lake Union.

And the housing sector is starting to look good again, says the ERFC’s Lerch. “Agents are reporting more multiple bids on houses and values are starting to rise,” he says.

According to the ERFC’s Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast report from November, these developments should translate into about 5,800 new construction jobs statewide, or a 4 percent gain, by the end of 2013. This trend is expected to continue, with a 6.5 percent employment increase in 2014 and an 8 percent rise in 2015.

Health care is where IT’s at
The positive signs in construction are encouraging, but the health care and tech fields continue to drive the Puget Sound economy.

For the next few years, both of these industries should converge to meet the demands of a single piece of legislation: the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which offers financial incentives to health-care companies that adopt electronic health-record systems. This stimulus, however, is scheduled to run out in 2015, so many hospitals are scrambling to digitize their records.

“If they don’t hit the deadline in 2015, their Medicare reimbursement could be reduced, which could be catastrophic,” says Debbie Crandall, president and CEO of Parker Staffing Services, which specializes in finding health-care IT professionals.

To make matters more frantic, Crandall says, nearly all hospital networks use the same Epic software system, which requires specific training available only through Epic. “There are only so many people you can train every year, so the talent war is huge between hospitals,” she says. “Our business is up by about $3 million over 2011.”

One in eight people over age 50 in Seattle — about 30,000 people — need some form of home health-care services, the Seattle OED estimates. This is creating demand in the allied health sector, which includes positions such as rehabilitation care providers, nurse practitioners, physical and occupational therapists and speech pathologists.

Joe Schmid, senior health-care recruiter at Maxim Healthcare Services, says there is a dire need for trained candidates in the allied health field, especially for those who have mastered laboratory skills and can operate medical imaging technology, such as MRIs, ultrasounds, CT scans and X-ray machines.

A focus on ‘middle skills’
Finding qualified candidates is always a nagging issue for recruiters, but it’s a problem that seems to get worse each year. According to the Seattle OED,Microsoft reportedly has more than 3,400 job openings in computer science and engineering, but is having immense difficulties finding people with the necessary skills.

Until this issue can be solved, the Seattle OED is making a push to raise the overall quality of the Seattle workforce with a focus on so-called middle skills — those requiring some education and training beyond high school but less than a bachelor’s degree. Houghton says about two-thirds of available jobs that pay a decent middle-class wage will require at least a post-secondary, associate-level education.

In a program called Pathways to Careers, the Seattle OED has coordinated with the Seattle Community Colleges system to teach these middle skills in fields such as business IT; health care; manufacturing and industrial skills; and international trade, transportation and logistics.

“These are some of the best programs you can find to get in and get out quickly into the workforce,” Houghton says. “You can take two quarters to make yourself employable somewhere, and then come back for another quarter to learn new skills and move up to a new position.”

Another successful way to stand out with hiring managers is to land an internship with a skilled trade. Bob Kirkbride, owner of Kirkbride Associates, a placement firm for the heating, ventilating and air conditioning service industry, complains that most young college grads never gain any real-world sales or marketing experience while they are in vocational school.

Kirkbride’s nephew had a paid summer internship with a design contractor while studying construction management at Central Washington University. “He learned how to work with crews and picked up project management skills,” Kirkbride says. “He already has two job offers.”

King County Work Training YouthSource, South Seattle Community College and the Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center partner with the MIC to operate a job training and exposure program called “SODO Inc” (Seeking Opportunities, Developing Occupations). The program works with young people who have experienced major challenges succeeding in traditional educational programs.

The program provides them with several weeks of safety training, industry tours and other work orientation experiences, followed by placement in an internship at an industrial work site. Interested businesses can contact us directly at 206-762-2470. Click here for employer incentives.

Certifications Received:

•Forklift Operation

•Flagging

•OSHA 10

•First Aid/CPR

In addition, South Seattle Community College and the Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center partner with the Manufacturing Industrial Council to operate a job training and exposure program funded by the Seattle-King County Workforce Council through US Department of Labor Green Light sources. The program trains adults and veterans that are disadvantaged with no or low income in need of updated training related to Green Manufacturing.

The program is designed to give the students industry-specific training, certifications and internship experience in Green Manufacturing. The training incorporates industrial safety certification, proper hand tool and PPE usage, as well as introduction to a range of specific skills from spray painting to welding techniques integrated into a 360-hour Manufacturing Basics program. Topics and certification are listed below. The training is followed by placement in an internship at an industrial work site for hands-on experience. Interested businesses can contact us directly at 206-762-2470. Click here for employer incentives.

A report release last month by New York’s Workforce Strategy Center, “Building Effective Green Energy Programs in Community Colleges,” features several innovative Seattle efforts, including programs at South Seattle Community College, which houses the largest selection of construction apprenticeships in the state of Washington; the Seattle Jobs Initiative; the Seattle-based Workforce Development Council; the City of Seattle; and SkillUp Washington.

To read more about innovative new workforce efforts in Seattle, refer to pages 10-11, and 14, of the report, which examines the burgeoning national ‘green’ industry, its economic promise, and the challenges and strategies involved in cultivating green jobs and the workers who fill them.

Julian Alssid, a researcher involved in writing the report, wrote recently about the group’s findings in a column for the Huffington Post, “The Promise of ‘Green’ and a Dash of ‘Reality’” (June 3, 2010). Alssid writes, “Our research…discovered several examples of how we might be able to develop the kind of training and development that will be needed to support the new industries when they are ready.”

Details: In many communities, cities are grappling with tough policy questions on how the potential of green jobs can translate into their local economic context and ultimately provide benefits to their citizens. To help cities better understand this topic, this free webinar will explore strategies local leaders can use to assess opportunities within and prepare local workers for careers in a green economy. The webinar will feature the following two speakers with firsthand expertise on green jobs and workforce development.

Joan Fitzgerald is professor and director of the graduate program in Law, Policy and Society at Northeastern University. She specializes in urban economic development and sustainability. Her new book, “Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development,” examines how cities are linking initiatives in renewable energy, green building, energy efficiency, waste management and transportation to job creation, business development and business profitability.

Saving Pioneer Square by teaching it some old tricksCrosscut
Washington’s Main Street program, designed to help commercial districts redevelop and rebound, survived draconian state budget cuts, barely. Developer Kevin Daniels has suggested that Main Street could provide an organizing catalyst for renewing Pioneer Square, a district receiving the attention of the city’s Office of Economic Development.

Gates Foundation grants push community college reformsKPLU
Most students who enroll at a community college lack the basic skills needed to succeed in school. New research from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation shows 2-year colleges need to reform their remedial education programs to improve low graduation rates.

Resources, templates abound at Inc. library of small business toolsInc.
Inc.com’s sizeable library of small business tools includes sample forms, job description templates, interactive worksheets, spreadsheets, and contracts, including 100 tools from DocStoc posted just this week.

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As a service to the Seattle business community, the Office of Economic Development curates a daily business news blast, Daily Digest. As a new trial feature on Bottom Line, we’re posting a handful of stories from the Daily Digest every day. Find the stories informative or helpful? Keep checking Bottom Line or sign up for Daily Digest to receive the full version in your inbox every day. Subscribe to the Daily Digesthere.

As a service to the Seattle business community, the Office of Economic Development curates a daily business news blast, Daily Digest. As a new trial feature on Bottom Line, we’ll be posting a handful of stories from the Daily Digest every day. This sampling is demonstrative of the incredible breadth of business activity going on every day in Seattle and in the region.

Find the stories informative or helpful? Keep checking Bottom Line or sign up for Daily Digest to receive the full version in your inbox every day. Subscribe to the Daily Digest by clicking here.

Cantwell announces $11 million for smart grid workforce trainingOffice of Maria CantwellSen. Maria Cantwell announced yesterday that $11 million in federal funds for workforce training will be heading to Washington. Centralia College will receive $5 million for a project that will deliver smart grid training for utility workers in the Pacific Northwest, including through an online portal. Seattle’s Office of Economic Development and Seattle City Light staffed this effort, with support from Seattle Jobs Initiative policy analysts.

Local independent record shops find ways to compete in digital ageSeattle Times
Experts say indie-music stores benefit from a resurgence in vinyl sales and an increased reliance on the more profitable used-records trade. Silver Platters, which sells music at two Seattle locations and another in Bellevue, now carries more used vinyl records, as well as CDs, owner Mike Batt said.

Seattle ranked second best big city for people with asthmaHealth
In August 2008, after a 90-degree heat wave and light winds caused smog, ozone, and other pollutants to accumulate over the city, Seattle violated the Clean Air Act for the first time since the 1990s. As a result, state and local officials were required to prepare a plan to improve air quality.

The Office of Economic Development is proud to support Mayor Mike McGinn’s Youth and Families Initiative by ensuring that low-income parents receive the career and technical education they need to compete for jobs in an increasingly competitive global economy.

We have long understood that educational attainment affects income. However, the difference in economic outcomes for those with the most education and those with the least education has never been starker. In 2008 and 2009, unemployment figures for those without a college degree have increased on average almost three times as fast as those with at least a college degree.

Turns out, increasing the rates of postsecondary attainment for low-income parents is also one of the best ways to help their children succeed. Recent research from the Gates Foundation suggests that parental education levels are the single most important driver of a child’s future – and that postsecondary education is the critical pathway that leads individuals and their families out of poverty.

OED invests in several partnerships that help adults attain the education and skills they need to attain living wage jobs. These are just few of our 2010 partners:

Seattle Jobs Initiative – to provide job skills training and support services for up to 1200 low-income clients with approximately 400 of them obtaining jobs;

SkillUp Washington – a new partnership encompassing leaders in philanthropy, government, education, and industry, to design new ways for working adults to obtain postsecondary degrees and credentials that have genuine labor market value; and,

The Manufacturing and Industrial Council – to place Seattle youth aged 16-24 in short term, paid work experience internships – a partnership that not only drives real living-wage careers, but makes sure that workers’ skills can meet changing industry demands.

The changing economy requires increasingly sophisticated workers who have access to ongoing education and training opportunities while they are working to support their families. The Office of Economic Development is leading this effort to bring vital post-secondary education and training to the workers who need it most – workers who will pass on the benefits, and knowledge, to their children.